Parenting and high-risk activities

I’m a complete idiot. For the second time in three years, I’m spending the first months of my newborn son’s life with my hand in a cast. The first time was pretty much a freak basketball accident — I was trying to fake out my man and go back door (that’s nowhere near as dirty as it sounds) and was hit by a slightly deflected pass in just the right place to shatter a bone on my pinky finger.

Seriously, I’m an idiot …

This time I was in the final stages of digging a stump out in my backyard — maybe a little sleep-deprived from the new baby — and somehow the shovel slipped so my hand slammed against the top of the stump. I knew it was broken immediately, and exactly one week after bringing my wife to the Oakland Kaiser ER with contractions, I walked through the same doors by myself.

My current cast and finger splint have been put on in such a way that 1) It constantly seems as if I’m throwing up gang sings signs; and 2) I can’t type effectively with my right hand. Seriously, I’m suddenly the Rick Allen of journalism. And of course, I broke the hand three days before my Pink section summer movie preview was due — which at more than 100 column inches will likely be the longest story I write this year. A relatively routine assignment that would normally take a day and a half was pecked out over nearly four full days.

I was so angry when it happened that I had to leave the room twice, so my 3-year-old wouldn’t hear me saying the f-word over and over. Mostly, I was frustrated because it was so preventable. And it completely goes against my new philosophy. One big part of becoming a parent for me has been trying to limit high-risk activity.

While I drove very offensively half a decade ago, I stick to the slow lanes now when my kids are in the car, and don’t step in a vehicle (with children or without) if there’s even a drop of alcohol in my system. I’m much more willing to put up with ass—- behavior from others in the name of avoiding physical confrontation, and I’ve cut down on my higher-risk hobbies.

Part of this has to do with keeping my kids safe, but I also think a lot more about my own well-being — which includes the ability to hold my job, take care of things around the house and play with my boys. My current situation puts an unfair burden on my wife, when I can’t give my older son a bath or change the younger one’s diaper, for fear of getting pee on my cast. (He’s a big sneak attack urinater, that little one … .) Other routine tasks, such as doing the dishes, take three times as long.

I enjoy working on a home project as a break from working at a desk, and want my kids to see me being productive around the house, which is something my father always did. But I also recognize that I’m not very good at manual labor, especially when I’m not completely focused. I know how to put in a chair rail, but there’s probably a 0.25 percent chance I’m going to sever a finger in the miter saw every time I try to do it.

I was talking to my friend Mike about the injury. When I told him I did it digging out a stump he responded, “Dude, you know you can pay people to do that for you?”